As Margaux, a waitress in a busy chain restaurant in Cardiff, begins to settle into our zoom call, both her enthusiasm and exasperation are apparent. She has many stories to tell. “A lot of guys used to hit on me. At the beginning, I didn’t really know how to handle it, I felt embarrassed and would always apologize for saying no.” She feels it to be something that happens to women more so than men working in this environment. Haille, who has worked as a cocktail waitress in many high end venues, recalls some similar stories. “This guy literally came up to me, cornered me and said, ‘I want to chain you up and take you to bed with me’.” She laughs nervously at the memory, but we both sit there in silence for a few seconds.

Many women in the service industry have to deal with inappropriate comments. In the UK, research reveals that 89% of women have experienced some form of sexual harassment. As a leading voice about this issue, US Congresswoman Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez (AOC) points out how harmful it is to work in an environment where paychecks are connected to customer satisfaction.

But this isn’t the only problem women face in this industry. AOC has also been persistently criticized for her background in the service industry, as a tweet of hers from 2019 suggests: ‘I find it revealing when people mock where I came from and they say they’re going to “send me back to waitressing”, as if that is bad or shameful. It’s as though they think being a member of Congress makes you intrinsically “better” than a waitress. But our job is to serve, not rule.” And although AOC is based in the US, UK hospitality workers face the same criticisms. Margaux relates, feeling “like there’s always an expectation that it isn’t your full time job. I realized this a lot when I was studying, people would constantly ask me if I was a student.”

There is a perception that being a waitress or bartender is shameful and merely a temporary job that ‘anyone can do’. In his article for the Outline, Gavin Jenkins speaks this perception: “being a server or bartender is still seen as, at best, a temporary job for college kids and not a legitimate career.” This is crippling to women wanting to make a valuable career in the industry. Margaux pipes up strongly at the issue and agrees: “when you see a male bartender, people consider it more as an actual career as opposed to a woman waitressing.” And Covid-19 makes matters worse, with a bigger percentage of women being cut from their jobs as a result of hospitality being a ‘non-essential business’.    

In my interview with Chloe, Assistant Manager at the popular chain Ask Italian, she says “these guys I was serving seemed very nice and flirtatious, but just ended up asking “so what do you do?” and “what do you want to do with your life?” I remembered feeling very frustrated and I just replied that this is my job and this is what I love doing.”  

Chloe is enlightening. She has much to say about being a manager and how she consistently has to prove her legitimacy in the role. And she raises a crucial question about the industry: “All of my Head Office members are men and it gets me thinking, well if most of Front Of House (FOH) are female, then how did they get there?” And many women do find it difficult to progress to these more senior roles.

In the Consultancy UK Report of April 2019, board level female representation is only 23.6% for the hospitality industry as a whole. Figures in The Women in Hospitality, Travel and Leisure 2020 WiH 2020 Review show that 70% of students actually studying for hospitality degrees at Oxford Brookes University are women. The review also shows us the top reasons why women leave their job is lack of career progression and salary. Plus, 33% of women feel as though their gender has been a key factor in missing out on a promotion or raise.

Not to mention with Covid-19 forcing lockdowns and countless restrictions on hospitality businesses, it now seems harder than ever to progress and make a valuable career. UKHopsitality, the leading authoritative voice for over 700 companies, reveals the turnover in the hospitality industry has dropped by 40% and there has been over 60,000 job losses since the beginning of the pandemic. Chloe expresses that these hospitality businesses should not be called ‘non-essential’. “It’s described with a vocabulary that reduces the hospitality worker; as people who are not doing ‘serious jobs’.

Many of our assumptions around our service industries today stem from most of the 20^th century when the bar scene was still considered as a ‘man’s domain’ . Back in the day, many pubs had separate entrances for women and even separate drinking rooms. Women were purposefully hidden from men so that they didn’t have to see them getting drunk. Even the shape of the famous Martini Glass was created partly to avoid spilling their drink and looking unrefined.

“I’ve been told I drink like a man! Just because I like heavy spirited drinks as opposed to a fruity cocktail.” Haille, frustrated, tells me how guys often laugh at their guy friend who ordered the ‘girly’ drink and say “oh I didn’t know it was going to be like this”. She often feels as though a man is expected to order a pint or a strong glass of whiskey and a woman, well, probably something fruity and light in a ‘girly’ glass. It obviously is not always the case, but a number of servers and bartenders do notice the trend. It is such that Heineken have released a new add called “Cheers to All” in which beer bottles are mistakenly served to the man, and the cocktail always served to the woman. They both jokingly switch their drinks and carry on with their night. But this can’t be swept under the rug. If even the drinks that they serve undergo gender assignment, how does this reflect on other roles in the industry?

Drinking The 'Wrong Drink' 

“I remember when I was working at The Moose in Paris, they only put guys behind the bar, and all the girls were waitressing. I was there for almost 2 years and I never did a proper bar shift.” Margaux’s voice sounds irritated as she recollects her experience.

Haille talks to the same concern “the bar is male run and has always been male run, they don’t even have many female bartenders and if they do then they will make her barback for like a year, no matter how much experience she has.” In her article for the Washington Post, M. Carrie Allan mentions that bars traditionally hire men as barbacks and women as servers which makes it harder for women to advance, specifically in bartending. There is a gender bias to the roles of FOH; and some of them provide career advancement more than others.   

UKHopsitality, has taken part in some key research revealing significant barriers for women. In their 2019 findings, there were issues still to overcome, including most importantly the need for belief in the business case for gender and the existence of stereotypes around gender. Women need to be seen as legitimate in whichever role they hold in the industry. And the forms of sexual harassment present in this environment need to be discussed more seriously. “I’m not just a waitress.” Margaux says. “Much more goes into it than what meets the eye.”